A wide deep infrared look at the Pleiades with UKIDSS: new constraints on the substellar binary fraction and the low mass IMF

Details A wide deep infrared look at the Pleiades with UKIDSS: new constraints on the substellar binary fraction and the low mass IMF A wide deep infrared look at the Pleiades with UKIDSS: new constraints on the substellar binary fraction and the low mass IMF

2007-06-15

arxiv.org/abs/0706.2234v1

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.380:712-732,2007

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

21 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, 1 electronic table, 6 appendices with tables, accepted to MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12106.x

We present the results of a deep wide-field near-infrared survey of 12 square degrees of the Pleiades conducted as part of the UKIDSS Deep Infrared Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Galactic Cluster Survey (GCS). We have extracted over 340 high probability proper motion members down to 0.03 solar masses using a combination of UKIDSS photometry and proper motion measurements obtained by cross-correlating the GCS with data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the Isaac Newton (INT) and the Canada-France-Hawai'i (CFHT) telescopes. Additionally, we have unearthed 73 new candidate brown dwarf members on the basis of five band UKIDSS photometry alone. We have identified 23 substellar multiple system candidates out of 63 candidate brown dwarfs from the (Y-K,Y) and (J-K,J) colour-magnitude diagrams, yielding a binary frequency of 28-44% in the 0.075-0.030 Msun mass range. Our estimate is three times larger than the binary fractions reported from high-resolution imaging surveys of field ultracool dwarfs and Pleiades brown dwarfs. However, it is marginally consistent with our earlier ``peculiar'' photometric binary fraction of 50+/-10% presented in Pinfield et al. (2003), in good agreement with the 32-45% binary fraction derived from the recent Monte-Carlo simulations of Maxted & Jeffries (2005) and compatible with the 26+/-10% frequency recently estimated by Basri & Reiners (2006). A tentative estimate of the mass ratios from photometry alone seems to support the hypothesis that binary brown dwarfs tend to reside in near equal-mass ratio systems. (abridged)

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

A wide deep infrared look at the Pleiades with UKIDSS: new constraints on the substellar binary fraction and the low mass IMF does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with A wide deep infrared look at the Pleiades with UKIDSS: new constraints on the substellar binary fraction and the low mass IMF, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and A wide deep infrared look at the Pleiades with UKIDSS: new constraints on the substellar binary fraction and the low mass IMF will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-549398